Mallard drakes fight like girls

At first, I was horrified at both the way the drakes fight, and also how they breed my darling little Mallard girls.

Every day, I look for missing feathers, marks - any sign of injury, but alas, everyone looks great.

The Mallard drakes pinch each others necks, and pull feathers, and dance around each other like the fight scene from Bridget Jones' Diary. Malcolm has claimed all 3 ducks for himself. Melvin is often isolated completely from the flock, is not allowed to swim with the girls, and has to wait to use the pool all alone.

Very frequently multiple drakes gang breeding hens have drowned them. Esecially when the drakes are far larger than the hens. If they were mine, I would be very cautious about allowing the Pekins access to the mallard hens.